The present invention relates to an electromagnetic relay which is suitable for use in a winker of a motor vehicle.
Generally, an electromagnetic relay is employed in the winker of the motor vehicle in order to intermittently supply electricity into a winker lamp. In this case, it is necessary that the fact that the winker lamp is working should be confirmed from outside, that is, should be recognized as an operating sound to be heard well by a driver of the motor vehicle.
For the above purpose, therefore, such an arrangement has conventionally been designed that when a movable component, i.e., a movable iron piece of the electromagnetic relay is returned to its original position, a part of the movable iron piece collides against the wall of a casing of the relay, which makes a sound to be heard outside as the operating sound.
In the above-described construction, however, the sound generated when the movable iron piece collides against the wall of the casing is generally dispersed and heard small. Therefore, it is inconvenient for the driver to find difficulties in hearing the sound.
In the prior art electromagnetic relay of the type referred to above, the movable iron piece is rotatably supported by an electromagnetic block via a hinged spring. When the electromagnetic block is excited to adhere an iron core by electromagnetic attraction, a movable contact point of a movable contact piece fixed to the movable iron piece is brought into contact with a fixed contact. On the contrary, when the excitation of the electromagnetic block is released, the movable iron piece hits the inner wall of the casing.
In other words, the inner wall of the casing in the prior art electromagnetic relay acts as a sounding means, and at the same time, it acts as a stopper for the movable iron piece.
On the other hand, the operating voltage of the electromagnetic relay has been adjusted by the adjustment of spring force which depends on how much the hinged spring is bent under the condition that the movable iron piece is in contact with the stopper.
However, since the stopper for the iron piece acts also as the sounding means as described above, if the operating voltage is adjusted incompletely, with the casing being sealed, it is necessary to open the casing again and to readjust the spring force of the hinged spring. Accordingly, it takes considerably difficult and painstaking work to adjust the operating voltage. Moreover, if the spring force of the hinged spring is increased so as to make a higher tone of the stopper as is often the case, the operating voltage is inclined to be raised.
Additionally, for the electromagnetic relay to be mounted on the motor vehicle, it is required to be highly resistive against shocks and vibrations. It is needless to say, therefore, that the electromagnetic relay should have solid and sturdy construction. In the prior art relay, however, terminals such as a contact terminal or a coil terminal secured to a coil spool and a common terminal secured to the yoke are fixed to the base in the manner that they are pressed into the base, and accordingly, the whole body of the electromagnetic body is maintained onto the base only by these thin plate-like terminals. Therefore, the relay cannot be held onto the base with sufficient strength, particularly, the heaviest electromagnetic block of the relay cannot be stably maintained, resulting in such problem that the features of the electromagnetic relay are unfavorably changed by shocks and/or vibrations.
For an electric device in which a leading terminal electrically connected to electric components is formed on a substrate mounting the electric components, for example, a terminal of the component is protrudingly inserted from above into a mounting hole (not shown) in the substrate printed with circuit. On the other hand, the upper end of the leading terminal which is cut out from the terminal to be bent is inserted from below into the positioning hole of the substrate. At the same time, the electric component and the leading terminal are electrically connected to each other by soldering via the printed circuit board.
However, when some external force is added to the leading terminal from outside in the electric device described above, the force affects also the mounting substrate to which is directly fixed the terminal, resulting in an easy damage of the substrate or an easy peeling-off of the solderings.
What is worse, the leading terminal is inserted into the hole of the thin substrate for fixing, consequently giving rise to such drawback that the leading terminal is apt to be displaced, the positioning accuracy of which is therefore quite low.